Recent Reads: Violent and the Trail of Trauma by Janina Scarlet

Source: From Librarything Early Reviewers Program and New Harbinger Publications in exchange for an honest review. This in no way alters my opinion or review. 

Violent and the Trail of Trauma by Janina Scarlet
Series: Dark Agents #1
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications, Instant Help
Publication Date:  March 1, 2020

 

Format:  Paperback

Rating:








Goodreads Synopsis: 

This spellbinding graphic novel follows the adventures of Violet—a young witch whose parents were murdered when she was a child. As she wages war against necromancers and demons, Violet learns to overcome her internal monsters as well. 

In this groundbreaking comic book for teens and young adults, we meet Violet—a witch whose parents were murdered by an evil necromancer when she was only six years old. Running from country to country, as well as from herself, Violet never gets a chance to fully process her traumatic experience. 

When she turns 19, Violet begins training at the Underworld Intelligence Agency (UIA) in hopes of becoming a Dark Agent—someone tasked with keeping the balance between the world of the living and the world of the undead. During her training, Violet hopes to finally overcome her fear of death and take control of her emotions, but instead she finds that mindfulness, vulnerability, and acceptance are the skills most necessary to help her succeed. 

Blended seamlessly throughout the story are elements of a powerful and evidence-based treatment called acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Whether or not you’ve experienced a traumatic event like Violet, you’ll find valuable skills you can apply to your own life to help you conquer your demons and hone your unique superpowers.

Note for therapists: Dark Agents presents the core skills of ACT in a fun, narrative format to appeal to teen readers. In this comic, teens will learn all about mindfulness, defusion, self-compassion, and values-based living. The book doesn't feel like a therapist recommendation—which is exactly what makes it perfect for your teen clients!

Review: 
This is a very interesting concept for a young adult graphic novel, it is a fantasy tale about a young witch that has been through a lot of trauma, so the main focus of the book is also about that trauma and how to deal with and overcome it. So the below review is focused on the fact that this book is to be used as a teaching tool, probably for therapists and the like. 

Violet is a witch who has lost her family to an evil Necromancer who is stealing souls of powerful witches, she has also been in his line of fire (literally) as well. She is determined to avenger her family and find the Necromancer, so she is enlisted in training for the Dark Agents, the FBI/CIA of the supernatural realm of this book. The book combines mythology with other supernatural characters as well as a teen drama, it is a fun little package. As Violet learns to cope and understand her emotions she becomes better equipped to take on her new life as a Dark Agent and try to help then track this notorious killer.

The overall theme of helping was very prominent. Full spreads on mindfulness and grounding yourself in order to better understand and pull back your emotions in order to center or recenter yourself. The book notes that this is called ACT - acceptance and commitment therapy. I found it to be very insightful and believe that this book will be a good teaching tool for counselors, therapists and the like. It is done in a way that works well with the plot of this story and the characters, but I think that the teens that read it might also need a nudge in order to use the methods discussed in the book.

At times the methods used seemed to disconnect the reader form the plot (at least that was my feeling). I think that it could have been embedded better but in the overall story they seem to make sense. 

Some overall thoughts, as a book not focused on emotional trauma, it was not that wonderful. It seemed a little throw together AROUND the therapeutic elements. However, as I mentioned, as a teaching tool this might be a very helpful type of read for young adults dealing with emotional issues, trauma, or that just need this type of therapy.